Canterbury Archbishop, US bishops
debate issue of gay clerics

BY A CORRESPONDENT
September 23, 2007:

The global
Anglican Communion is threatened by a
split over the debate brewing in the
Church after the Episcopal Church of
the United States in 2003 approved as
the bishop of New Hampshire the
Reverend V Gene Robinson, who is
openly gay and lives with his longtime
partner.

According to the conservatives, the
approval violated the Bible’s
teachings on homosexuality,
intensifying the long-developing
tensions over the liberal direction of
the Episcopal Church.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan
Williams, head of the Anglican Church,
in a last-ditch effort to avoid a
schism in the global Anglican
Communion, spent several hours in
talks with most of Episcopal bishops
of the United States on September 20,
2007.

At the talks held in New Orleans, many
bishops of the America’s Episcopal
Church tried to convince Archbishop
Rowan Williams that it was a mistake
to define the American Church solely
by its decision four years ago to
approve an openly gay priest as bishop
of New Hampshire.

The unusual talks between the
Archbishop of Canterbury and the
bishops of America’s Episcopal Church
took place just days before a
September 30, 2007 deadline, set by
leaders of Anglican provinces around
the world, for the American Church to
withdraw its support for gay rights or
face some unspecified form of
punishment.

The American bishops told the
Archbishop of Canterbury how they see
the Church in the United States, and
the Archbishop asked them a lot of
questions.

Despite deep disagreements among the
bishops over theology and increasing
dissatisfaction among some
Episcopalians with the Anglican
Communion, none of the 159 bishops who
attended the meeting with the
Archbishop of Canterbury spoke in
favor of leaving the global Anglican
Communion.

The Anglican Communion is a
77-million-member global coalition of
regional Churches that trace their
roots to the Reformation and the
Church of England.

Bishop M Thomas Shaw of Massachusetts
said he told the Archbishop of
Canterbury that gay rights issues
should not depend on approval from the
majority of the Anglican Communion,
but urged the Archbishop to recognize
that gay rights supporters (such as
Thomas Shaw) believe they are acting
in a “prophetic way.”

Bishop M Thomas Shaw said he also told
the Archbishop that it is difficult to
seek consensus in the American Church
“when these American bishops are going
to Africa and making promises and
playing on the fears of the African
Church.”

Bishop Shaw was referring to the fact
that Anglican leaders in Kenya,
Nigeria, Rwanda, and Uganda have
consecrated American priests,
including the Reverend William Murdoch
of Massachusetts, as bishops to
minister to the alienated conservative
minority in the United States who no
longer feel comfortable in the
Episcopal Church.